Last week, Amnesty USA’s Human Rights Now reported that  fifteen “human rights lawyers known for defending individuals’ right to freedom of speech and victims of police violence” had been arrested in pre-dawn raids in Istanbul.

Today, according to press reports and Human Rights Watch, nine of the lawyers, including the national head of the Progressive Lawyers’ Association and the head of its Istanbul branch, were charged and are being held in pre-trial detention.

“What makes the latest arrests particularly disturbing,” Emma Sinclair writes in the Human Rights Watch posting, “is that these lawyers are well-known for acting on behalf of those whose rights have been violated by the state.”